Loft

Although it's still relatively recent, it's actually a huge disgrace that it took me until now to finally watch and review "Loft". This is the most acclaimed, both publicly and critically, movie ever to be made in my home country Belgium and it instantly broke all historical box office records over here. I don't really have a valid excuse for waiting so long (perhaps didn't want to jump into the momentarily hype?) but I'm glad to announce that "Loft" is a solid and suspenseful thriller that can easily compete with the large foreign offer of similar movies. The film deals with typical Hollywood themes (adultery, murder, conspiracy theories…) and implements the contemporary popular narrative structure of flashbacks and messed up continuity, but luckily enough the atmosphere and character drawings remain old-fashioned Flemish. Under the influence of the sleazy architect Vince, five men in their late 30's and with a typical yuppie mentality secretly share a luxurious loft in the center of Antwerp where they can go with their mistresses and/or prostitutes without having to explain hotel bills and Visa expenses to their wives. When one of them stumbles upon the barbarically butchered corpse of a young girl in the morning, they gather together in the loft to discuss the situation. There are only five keys to the apartment and the doors where locked when they discovered the girl, so logically speaking one of them has to be the culprit. Through a series of flashbacks and deeper character elaborations, the script illustrates that the five perhaps aren't the loyal and close friends than they might think and that their lies, unfaithfulness and deception will finally bring them down. The scenario, spawn from the creative and versatile mind of Bart De Pauw, practically unfolds like a mystery thriller with Giallo allures. The plot grows increasingly convoluted with each flashback and each new red herring, and just when you think all the revelations are made, there's another new and unpredictable plot twist. The final twist is perhaps even one too many, but then still the events remains plausible and very well-written. Numerous sequences in "Loft" are very powerful and display a genuine sense of craftsmanship. The roughly edited and fast paced sequence inside the casino, where all protagonists are gathered not only with their wives but also with their mistresses and personal opponents, is nail-bitingly tense and atmospheric. Some of the characters are stereotypical, like the lightly inflammable bad-boy Filip and the nerdy Luc, but those aren't obstacles. Despite of the easily exploitative themes, the amount of gratuitous sex and explicit violence is kept low in favor of suspense-building and intrigue. This is particularly praiseworthy for a Belgian film, rest assured.

Highly recommended Belgian movie Loft (2008), proved to be a very engaging cinematic fare about five married men renting a state-of-the-art loft apartment as a playground for their extramarital affairs and a meeting point for encounters with their mistresses, one of them, eventually, becoming an object of a crime scene, so the initial story about five "allies", plotting together, united around their common gains and benefits, evolves into exciting whodunit puzzle about five "enemies" scheming against each other, divided by their individual excuses and vindication, a group of supposed-to-be friends now going through self-exposing, eye-opening exercise, with a number of revealing-concealing, (un)intentionally deceiving, mystery building flash-backs, leading to a numerous clever twists and turns.

because this movie would be world wide hit. I guess it's only a matter of months before Hollywood will start a remake of this movie, which -if properly filmed- WILL be world wide hit.

There's been a lot comparing with "The Usual Suspects", and I can get the point: the interrogation filled with flashbacks, the witty and clever plot and the unexpected end, when you believe all was solved. Still, these two movies are completely different. Someone who goes to "Loft" expecting to see "The Usual Suspects" will be disappointed, and that is not meant as a criticism. Simply, Loft stands on its own and apart from what I wrote above, has little to do with "The Usual Suspects". But someone who enjoyed Suspects (and Memento for that matter) will certainly like Loft.

Storytelling is an art.

If you have a decent story to tell, there's a couple of tools one can use to involve the audience in this modern crime-mystery. The creators have carefully made use of a well proportioned amount of all sort of goodies at their disposal to make the movie captivating. It stings your interest, it bites your brainwaves and in a completely natural way it wakes up the hidden private detective in the spectators mind.

You're no longer watching the movie, you are in it yourself.

"Loft" is a well build-up whodunit-flick, both worth your money & your time.

What you can expect from this movie is a lot. First of all it's a thriller whodonit which last 2 hours. At the end of the movie you feel like is this over already??? That's a bloody good sign.

And then there's a lot more... five men share a loft where they meet their fancy women (read mistresses), they all have different personalities and that's a lot to take in a movie, but they are so well pictured and so well drawn in the script(Bart De Pauw) that they all become our friends sooner or later. Then include the wives and the mistresses, it's a real challenge to think who DID it.

Apart from that and without giving out any clues, it's so well acted, and the LOFT where most of the scenes are shot feels like a tremendous dangerous being. The LOFT has an extra role in this movie, believe me.

This movie, as a good friend told me, is not "The Usual Suspects" but it's close... very close. I thought about this a lot and then I think of course it is not the Usual Suspects, nobody wants a remake of that movie.

Loft is different but you will like the characters, not one second bores you except maybe the knife combat which takes a bit too long.

I especially enjoyed the Düsseldorf bar and the Casino scene. Great cinematography.

For people who enjoyed this I recommend the movie "Shades" with Mickey Rourke, I preferred this one a lot more than The Alzheimer Affair. But then, that's me...